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Exploring the Body

In this series about the parts of the body, Professor Bourke hopes to reveal the historically varied ways that people have understood bodies. These variations are often surprising; always intriguing. The changing medical, scientific, moral, economic, and political meanings given to the material body have radical implications for human culture. Understanding these meanings can tell us a great deal about what it means to be human.

Joanna Bourke is a well-known social and cultural historian. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and outgoing Chair of its Modern History Section, as well as holding the Global Innovations Chair at the University of Newcastle (Australia). (from gresham.ac.uk)

Lecture 1 - A History of Hair
This lecture explores how hair has been seen as symbolic of empowerment, deviance, and identity.

Lecture 2 - A History of the Eye
From ancient times to popular self-help books today, eyes have been viewed as 'windows to the soul'. This lecture explores the politics of scientific theories about eyes.

Lecture 3 - A History of the Breast
There has been a great deal of research on breast cancer, surgery, and implants. This lecture looks at changing ideas about the healthy breast.

Lecture 4 - A History of the Penis and the Clitoris
Is the clitoris simply a female version of the male penis? Many scientists and biologists in the past thought so.

Lecture 5 - A History of the Stomach
This lecture looks at nineteenth-century fads involving stomachs, including the medical prescription of tapeworms that were supposed to live in a person's stomach and "eat" food on their behalf.

Lecture 6 - A History of the Foot
The science of feet and footprints has a long, yet often forgotten, history. In this lecture, I look at what people from the late eighteenth century to the present thought they knew about toes, arches, heels, and ankles.